Music fan Stu Hanson commented: “For the sake of accuracy though, there was no 1961 Newport Jazz Festival. Seriously. This Coltrane recording is from Music At Newport, an entirely different one-off event that happened in Newport that summer. Here’s a basic synopsis of what happened (from the Newport Jazz Festival wiki). You can also read about it in depth in George Wein’s highly recommended autobiography”:

In 1960 boisterous spectators created a major disturbance, and the National Guard was called to the scene. Word that the disturbances had meant the end of the festival, following the Sunday afternoon blues presentation headlined by Muddy Waters, reached poet Langston Hughes, who was in a meeting on the festival grounds. Hughes wrote an impromptu lyric, “Goodbye Newport Blues,” that he brought to the Muddy Waters band onstage, announcing their likewise impromptu musical performance of the piece himself, before pianist Otis Spann led the band and sang the Hughes poem. Presentation of the proper Newport Jazz Festival was disallowed in 1961 due to the difficulty of the previous year’s festival. In its place, another festival billed as Music at Newport was produced by Sid Bernstein in cooperation with a group of Newport businessmen. That festival included a number of jazz musicians but was financially unsuccessful. Bernstein announced that he would not seek to return to Newport in 1962. The Newport Jazz Festival resumed at Freebody Park in 1962.